The Live Ghost

With today being Halloween, I thought I'd celebrate the day by watching some comedy teams' films that deal with various scary things. In this one, Stan & Ollie are offered some money by a ship captain (Walter Long) to shanghai some drunken men to work on his boat. They succeed but also end up on it themselves. Since those men are stuck with them, the boys are protected by the captain. So when Laurel & Hardy decide to stay at each port, the captain orders them to keep an eye on one really drunk sailor (Arthur Housman) from leaving. That's when the fun really begins...It took a while but as the short kept on, I really found myself laughing especially when Stan gets really scared and then Ollie becomes so as well. Housman really piles his standard drunk act to hilarious results. Oh, and a threat from Long results in yet another freak ending Stan usually likes to employ to outrageous effect. So on that note, The Live Ghost gets a high recommendation from me.

When the L&H Fan Club "The Sons of the Desert" was formed in the early 1960's, Stan, who had sustained a crippling stroke, nevertheless gave his blessing to the formation of the club and supplied the motto for it, which I have repeated above. (Another of his witticisms which I like is "You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be lead").

Theo Robertson in his comment above wondered whether either of the boys were fishermen. I don't believe Hardy was but Laurel in his younger days was a keen big game fisherman and fished regularly off Catalina Island for swordfish or marlin. Catalina Island, Theo, is about an hour boat trip from Los Angeles, for your information. He loved the water and had his own boat in those days.

In 1962 I visited Stan at his apartment in the Oceana Hotel in Santa Monica. A wonderful experience and a fond memory for this writer. One question I asked him was about Walter Long, the villain of villains in many of their films. His reply was that surprisingly, Long was one of the mildest men he had ever known and absolutely would not hurt a fly. That came as a big surprise for me.

This is a pretty good Laurel and Hardy short--not among their best, but still very good and watchable. I think part of the reason it works so well is that Walter Long is an incredibly scary and effective foil for the team. I would be very scared if Long were chasing after me, thank you very much! The boys think they accidentally killed a shipmate while shanghaied aboard Long's ship. So the solution? Yep, put the guy in a bag and chuck him overboard!!! Well, the "dead guy" isn't really dead and when this bag starts moving, things get crazy. It's silly and stupid and funny to see this guy accidentally get turned white and Stan and Ollie think he's a ghost. Believable? No way--but fun!

THE LIVE GHOST,out here in New York,is shown in conjunction with the annual Thankgiving showings of MARCH OF THE WOODEN SOLDIERS---so I've pretty much memorized everything in it down to t he last comma.

Walter Long was saying his near-farewells,as only GOING BYE BYE and an overlooked bit in PICK A STAR(1937) remained in his work with Stan&Ollie.

The boys agree to help roughneck sea captain Long shanghai a crew;only to end up knocked out themselves and out at sea--with the men they abducted in an unforgiving mood.

Long is sensitive about people referring to his ship as "haunted" and growls that the next guy who says that "will get his head twisted around so when he's walking North he'll be looking South".

Their drunken shipmate Arthur Houseman falls into a vat of whitewash and Stan&Ollie end up the victims of the threat.

Mae Busch makes one of her last appearances with the boys,and Charlie Hall is cast against type as a roughneck seaman.

These days,the price of eggs would work against their shanghai-ing method.

And remember--the ocean is infatuated with sharks.

No one wants to ship on skipper Walter Long's ship. They all say it's haunted, and he gets violent whenever anyone repeats that. He pays Laurel and Hardy a dollar a head for helping him shanghai hands.... and then shanghais them. Add in Mae Busch as a waterfront floozie and you've got a good comedy.

Walter Long was the actor for the Boys whenever they wanted a real tough. He seems to have priced himself out of their market soon after this. A veteran of more than 200 features and shorts from 1910, he died on Independence Day in 1952 at the age of 73.